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Serial killer claims 5th victim, 4th nickname

It was confirmed today that the serial killer formerly known as ‘The Scented Slasher’ was being renamed for the fourth time in as many weeks, as detectives pleaded with the press for more time to find a common theme to his crimes and a suitable nickname to reflect them. Officers from across the country have now been drafted in to help the Metropolitan Police with their high-profile hunt for a new tag for the murderer.

‘His first two victims were found with multiple stab-wounds and doused with L’Air du Temps in woods close to their homes,’ said Detective Inspector Craig King, leading the investigation. ‘We put two and two together and dubbed him ‘The Scented Slasher’ – the newspapers loved it and we were all pretty chuffed. But when his next victim was a 53-year-old taxi-driver, shot in his cab in Richmond and with the index finger on his left hand removed, well, that really put a spanner in the works.’

With no perfume involved and a different murder weapon, the police were forced to stop calling the murderer ‘The Scented Slasher’ and pursue other lines of inquiry. ‘We soon realised that each victim had recently come back from a holiday in the Costa del Sol, so we settled on the ‘Marbella Murderer’. Suddenly it was all tying together nicely, and we had some alliteration going too.’

That nickname lasted only two weeks, however, as the next victim, an elderly woman found asphyxiated in her nursing home, had no connection with Spain. Furthermore the killer had placed a Vandoren V.12 reed on her forehead and had shortened her emergency alarm cord with a double-loop bowline, suggesting, perhaps, a nautical clarinet player.

At a loss to bring all these elements together in one nickname, the police settled on ‘The London Serial Killer’, until last week, when the fifth victim, a 39-year-old bar manager, was found poisoned, his mouth stuffed with chess pieces, and wearing a wetsuit in his garden in Swansea.

‘This guy was starting to make us look silly,’ said Detective King. ‘It was just so infuriating to think that even as we sat at our desks desperately trying to come up with a new nickname, that monster was out there claiming fresh victims in a creative and original manner. It just made us feel so helpless.’

However, following a breakthrough late last night at the station, detectives are confident that they’ve now got the better of the killer. ‘We really think we can make this latest nickname stick, and I’ll be as suprised as anyone if we have to stop calling him ‘Random Crime Dude’.’